SC orders CBSE to re-conduct AIPMT on July 25

New Delhi: The CBSE, on Tuesday, announced that it would re-conduct the All India Pre Medical Test (AIPMT) for medical and dental courses on July 25.

“Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) decided to re-conduct the All India Pre-Medical/Pre-Dental Test – 2015 on July 25 following Supreme Court orders on June 15 and June 19”, the board said in a statement.

It added that no fresh applications would be accepted for the examination and it would be a “retest only in respect of the candidates who had applied within the stipulated time from 01/12/2014 to 31/01/2015 with requisite fee”.

The Supreme Court on June 19 gave CBSE time till August 17 to conduct the exam and declare the results of AIPMT for medical and dental courses for the year 2015-16.

The court by its June 15 order had cancelled the AIPMT examination held on May 3 following the leak of the question paper and circulation of the answer keys through electronic devices across 10 states in the country, observing that the exam was rendered “futile by a handful of elements seeking to reap undue financial gain by subjecting the process to their evil manoeuvres”.

The Madras High Court Bench here today came down heavily on the CBSE observing that it was being autocratic in the matter related to errors in the Tamil version of this year’s National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.

A bench of justices C T Selvam and A M Basheer Ahamed made the observation while hearing a public interest litigation filed by CPI-M leader T K Rangarajan, seeking award of full marks for 49 ‘erroneous’ questions in the Tamil version of the NEET.

It said that despite knowing that a PIL on the matter was filed and it was due for hearing, the CBSE had released the results.

“Why did they do so?”, the court asked.

Referring to the CBSE’s submission, the bench said, “How do you decide the right answers for the questions based on majority view? CBSE is accepting even wrong answers under the pretext of majority decision. How is that in Bihar state so many students got through the examination?” it asked.

Later, it adjourned the hearing on the PIL without mentioning any date.

The petitioner has submitted that key words in the Tamil questions were wrongly translated from English and this caused confusion for the students.

In the previous hearing, the court had asked the CBSE to file an affidavit stating among others on whether any exercise was undertaken to ascertain which of the English words in the syllabi for science subjects were incapable of being reproduced in an equivalent word in Tamil.